Christianity QA

Question:

However, history shows that the Muslim world was at its social, economic and intellectual summit when it was ruled by Islamic law. But how high was that summit? Perhaps it was comparable to that of The Holy Roman Empire, but did either entity approach the social, economic and intellectual level of modern countries of today?

  Most western industrial provincial (state) capitals have more industry, human and military capital than the whole Roman Empire. Most of their citizens live a life beyond the dreams of any ancient king. Intellectually, well, I leave that debate to the intellectuals.

Response:

However, history shows that the Muslim world was at its social, economic and intellectual summit when it was ruled by Islamic law.

But how high was that summit? Perhaps it was comparable to that of The Holy Roman Empire, but did either entity approach the social, economic and intellectual level of modern countries of today? It was only when the newly created nation-states began pursuing other ideologies that the Islamic world fell into decline.

My impression is that the west gained an advantage as a result of reducing reliance on religious dogma as a source of truth and placing greater reliance on science and philosophy. As a result Western countries were able to leap ahead in science, and consequently in medicine, economics, politics, technology and so on. Then competition between Western countries for resources drove them into a competition for colonies–from which no weaker country was safe.   How could Muslim countries effectively resist? A number of non-Western countries resisted colonisation by introducing the scientific and philosophical ideas that had allowed Western countries to become powerful. These included Japan, Thailand and Turkey among others. The example of Turkey is relevant to this discussion, because Kemal Atat

Related Posts